The Colour of Mercy
by Kasha2
Summary: Ivy reflects on Lucius being stabbed as she sits alone on the porch outside her house.


Summary: Just a simple ramble on Ivy's part. I wondered what she might be thinking as she sat on the chair on her porch after Lucius was stabbed. This story is being told post-that scene in a reflective manner.  
  
Author's Note: Ivy was my favourite character, though I Lucius was quite intriguing himself. For some reason Ivy just caught my attention as a good story-teller.  
  
A sombre wind crept past me, blowing my hair and tickling my face. It was cold and bitter with the notion of frost. I assumed that snow would come soon enough.  
  
I tried to imagine, just for a moment, his face. Of course I could not go to his side and look upon it, that would be impossible.  
  
Instead, he had a colour. A colour I will never speak of, for it is unbecoming of a lady to idle so freely on such conversation. You shouldn't have asked.  
  
But despite my inner 'sight' (the light haze of colour that followed those I cared about) no image of Lucius Hunt could enter my mind.  
  
In disappointment I tried to picture something more simple: the rolling hills I spied from my porch as a child. The sheep that danced in the distance. The looming forest: always an omen of fear. Still, nothing.  
  
Complete blackness. It was something I had never experienced before, oddly enough considering I was blind, and to this day remain so. Surprised? Rightly so.  
  
I had always been gifted though, gifted with the first 4 years of my life being illuminated with sight. Real, true sight. Gifted with colour. Gifted with family, friends and a secret love.  
  
I never meant to go blind, and I wager my father felt the same. Our Village is welcoming and kind, but I still felt oddly as an outcast because of my blindness--like Noah.  
  
Noah, my friend. My friend who could not still his hands or silence his voice when he needed to. Noah who could not learn as the other children could. Noah who tried to murder a love rooted in the purity of childhood flirtations and deep, deep emotional passion.  
  
Noah Percy, my old companion and fellow outcast stabbed Lucius Hunt. He drew a kitchen knife and thrust it into Lucius' stomach and chest, puncturing his organs and flooding them with blood. He left him to writhe in pain on a cold wooden floor, alone. And when I came upon my love he was motionless and heavy, with no colour.  
  
Noah, you see, made a great mistake. I understood his handicap. I was aware that he could not control his actions rationally or distinguish between good and bad wholly. But I still could not contain the hatred that flooded from my hand, hot on his face with each new vengeful smack. Once, twice, three times---I lost count. I was carried out of the room in a rage so unfit for a lady that my parents might have fainted at the sight.  
  
Again, I come back to Noah's mistake. He stabbed Lucius. Lucius Hunt, who in all of his silence and brooding contemplation was no less of an outcast than Noah and I!  
  
Lucius the quiet young man. Shy. Intense. The boy who held my arm while walking---that is until he realized he could hold it no more---for fear of setting an ill feeling in my sister's young heart.  
  
Oh, my dear Lucius. In my darkness, being shuffled and tossed around by panicked bodies that I could not see, he found my hand. And again at the door before we fled to the cellar.  
  
I knew he would come for us. I knew it. As if by magick. There is magick, I assure you.  
  
And then this.  
  
Again the wind bit sharply at my face: a face I barely know. I am told I am beautiful. Orange hair, wide blue eyes, freckles. I am told that sometimes, just sometimes, it is impossible to tell if I am truly blind or not. My father says, "Your eyes radiate a soft light, like none I've seen before, my child. You see, can't you? Just not like we see. My precious Ivy, you see the world."  
  
As I said, to this day I am blind and to this day I hear that I am a beauty. I care not either way.  
  
In that moment I was lost and helpless, starring into a black nothingness, wishing for life to spring back into the bones of my love, or else death to seep into my own.  
  
I did what I could do. All that I could do, I hope. I went into the forest, the dense forest, so bitter and unforgiving. I ventured into what I could not fathom, and as I lay in the mud cold and aching I thought, "Let him live. Death take me now or let him live. If there is mercy in this world, please, please. Hear me. Wind carry my voice to the towns! Trees, part your branches and up your roots! Stones guide me on a path. If there is mercy, let this be so, for all else would be unjust. Let this be, if you do not want the hell stiring inside my lungs to be unleashed on these forsaken woods. Mercy! Mercy!"  
  
And now here I am, retelling the events that changed my life so drastically. I collected the healing utensils and made my way back to the village. Our physician and nurse worked feverishly on Lucius, in solitude. Catrina White spied through the window told me that the manner of medicines they administered were foreign, strange. I cared little.  
  
And still do not care. For it is a week from the day that I crossed the forest, and stepped shakingly into the towns. To this day I am blind. To this day I am beautiful, or so they tell me. And to this day my dear Lucius is lying unconscious on an infirmary bed.  
  
The doctor told me that the infection is gone, but he still does not stir. If Lucius cannot wake soon he will die from starvation. His body is withering away. There is still such little hope.  
  
But he will fight. He is so brave.I know it. Would you like to know how I am so sure? His colour...it's vague---a haze really. So faint, but deepening. Just like magick.  
  



End file.
